Wing and a Prayer
  
Celavie
  

Fandango
  
Blues Xtra

Optimumm
  

Exhibitionist
E1 Business/
Penguin Power
 

Crewsaver Dickies
Yacht Sales
 
Blyth Spirit
 

Kocomodo
  

Moontiger III


2001 news round-up

Scottish Series

Graham Hughes' Banks Sails powered Sunfast 40 Wing and a Prayer (left) performed very well at this year's Scottish Series. In fact they led a highly competitive IRC Class 2 for most of the regatta until the last day.

A fifth in the last race left Wing and a Prayer tied on points with the J35 Jacana who won the regatta by virtue of a better score in the offshore race. Third in the Class was another boat with Banks Sails, Peter Fairley's Sigma 400 Pinocchio VII.
In the Sportsboat Class Banks Sails were again to the fore. The Soling Lord of the Isles took seven first guns to secure a convincing win.

West Country success for Banks Sails

The end of August saw the traditional end of season regattas in the West Country and boats flying Banks Sails were again seen at the fore-front of many classes.
At the Torbay Royal Regatta Roger Lean in his X-332 Celavie (left) had to be content with a second in IRC 2 this year after winning the event for the past two years. Roger carries a full suit of Checkmate Kevlar fore and aft sails and Series 2000 spinnakers.

Tim Whitehead's OOD 34, New Moon, won IRC 3 at Torbay flying a Checkmate Kevlar No.1.

For the Dartmouth Royal Regatta competition was even fiercer than at Torbay. The standard in IRC 1 was especially high as it featured many boats that have already had a successful season. Last year's winner, David Scanlan's First 40.7, Fandango (left), sailed a good Regatta to score a third overall behind a Ker 11.3 with Phil Crebbin as tactician and a Farr 395 with Peter Morton of Farr UK driving.

In a high-quality field that also included amongst others two Primas, three HODs, a pair of Corby one offs and an IMX40, Fandango showed great speed with her Banks inventory, even though she is still carrying many of her original sails from 1999 and has not had any new sails since 2000!

As last year IRC 2 was won by Peter Johnson's well-sailed Dartmouth-based X-302 Blues Xtra (left). In a very competitive class that included seven X-332s, Blues Xtra showed consistent speed across the varied conditions. For this year Peter had added a new Series 2000 Runner to complement his Checkmate Kevlar Sport Main and AP No.1 from last year.


Banks Sails power Greek victory

During the summer we delivered some new sails for the Athens-based Mumm 36, Optimumm (left). Included were two Cuben Fiber genoas as well as a new mainsail. As the first Cuben sails in Greece the genoas caused much interest. A couple of days after the sails arrived it was straight into the Greek IMS Nationals.

After their first outing Nick Lazos commented: "boat speed targets were easily achieved…….often exceeding them by 0.2-0.4 knots"

At the Nationals Optimumm's results confirmed that the new sails were very fast indeed as they won the IMS Racing class as well as scoring an excellent second overall behind the heavily optimised cruiser/racer Atalanti.

Winning in X-332s

Following on from Exhibitionist's (left) win in the Warsash Spring Series we have further refined our race proven X-332 sail designs.

Xplorer was a race winner at Cowes and the Hamble Winter Series and was also fourth at the Nationals. Celavie scored a second at the Torbay Regatta and Blyth Spirit (left) won the Port Edgar Autumn Series.


Hamble Winter Series

The 2001 Winter Series was dominated by uncharacteristically light airs. After the first weekend's racing was cancelled due to bad weather it was only Race 6 which featured a good blow.

After their second in 2000 the team on E1 Business/Penguin Power (left) dominated the Sportsboat class. Counting 11 firsts and a second they discarded two seconds and a third! We have been working hard on Beneteau 25 sails and the crew were particularly impressed with the performance of their new 1/2oz AP spinnaker.

Tim Gabriel's Moontiger III (left) scored a second overall in the Bowsprit class, convincingly beating all the other J105s and only narrowly missing out to the new J109. Before the Series we delivered a new Mainsail and Class Jib for the boat built from Kevlar Smoke. After the last race Tim commented that "the new Main and Jib have been fantastic sails".

Ian Dawson's X-332 Xplorer was third in a very competitive IRC 3.

Offshore success

2001 was a Fastnet year and as such the majority of RORC races held throughout the year featured large and competitive fleets. When the final season's points were calculated Banks Sails powered boats featured in the top three in IRC 1, 2, 3 and IRM 2. Well done to the skippers and crews of Quokka-Fandango, Dansos, Clarionet and Cumara.

First in the 31.7s

This year has seen a remarkable growth in the number of Beneteau First 31.7s on the water. In February 2001 we produced a full suit for Crewsaver Dickies Yacht Sales (left) which subsequently went on to win the Warsash Spring Series, RORC Easter Challenge and ISORA Regatta. They also scored a 2nd in the Round The Island and 3rd in the IRC Nationals.

These results led to many more orders for 31.7 sails including Kocomodo (left) which was a new addition to the thriving Dublin Bay fleet. Her first outing was the Howth Autumn League where she counted two individual race wins and came second overall.

Back to Sails Talk 2002